Mentoring in an Expanded Definition of Leadership

Transcript

00:00:00.000But in leadership it's absolutely critical that you have someone that can mentor you through that process,

00:00:07.176especially for students that maybe traditionally haven't been given those opportunities, whether they be women or students of color or GLBT students.

00:00:17.360It's not enough just to say you can be a leader but we need to make sure that we have mentors from those communities and allies of those communities to really help them see that there is a path forward

00:00:29.820and that their voice is important and their contribution is valued, and frankly expected.

00:00:35.282We want everyone to feel like they're a part of this. The other thing that I say is that the leadership table is much larger than we've given voice to over the years

00:00:44.270because if you think back throughout history, not just at this institution and this country but around the world, we've had a very narrowing definition of leadership.

00:00:53.538We said you had to look a certain way and you had to look more like me than like you. You had to be, you know, skin color of a certain way. That's such a limiting way of looking at leadership.

00:01:05.025So when I teach leadership I say the table of leadership is really wide open because the only thing you have to have to be a leader-this is slightly overstating it-is a passion to make change

00:01:16.824and the ability to try to engage people in that process.

00:01:19.534That says nothing about your gender, your sexual orientation, your race/ethnicity, where you were born, or how much money's in your bank account.

00:01:27.499It says that you have an idea that you're passionate about and willing to work hard to work with others to make that happen.